Day: July 20, 2012

This is an encore presentation of a previous post by author David Antrobus, from the Franklin Mint’s David Antrobus collection. – editor’s note.

“I just saw the movie, wasn’t a patch on the book.”

If I’d stuffed my face with a deep-fried Mars bar every time I heard this sentiment, I’d probably lose a weigh-in with an elephant seal, have a mouthful of teeth with the average consistency of a sea sponge, and skin the overall texture of pepperoni by now. I’ll bet every last one of us has said something similar, though. Which makes every last one of us a bit weird, really. Not quite stupid, but getting there, you know?

Let me explain my thinking. (I find I have to do that a lot, which says nothing good about me whatsoever.)

It’s actually quite simple. A book is a book. A movie is a movie. And Popeye is what he is… an extremely odd-shaped sailor with a fetish for canned green vegetables.

Seriously, though, “the book was better” has become one of those irksome knee-jerk phrases that are stand-ins for something else entirely. See: “it’s political correctness gone mad!” which actually means “damn, the world doesn’t condone my bigotry any more, so I’ll just have this here tantrum instead”. Or: “I knew them before they were famous” which translates as “I am an unctuous hipster and will drip oily, corrosive scorn on, you know, like, everyone not in the inner circle of me, dude.” Continue reading “Redux: The Book Was Better”

As a publicist, I’ve had several people ask me for tips on gaining publicity in the media. One of my responses was always “you have to get the media’s attention”. No matter how amazing your press release, without a hook that catches the media’s attention, forget interviews and coverage. Your job is to reach out and grab the media by the nose hairs!

Here are some tips to help get their attention:

Tie Into Current Events in the Media. Watch the media and see what they are talking about. Find a way to put a unique spin on the story with your expertise. When the Hudson River emergency plane landing occurred, one of my clients was contacted by Fox News almost immediately because the media discovered his book about a similar crash in 1974 online. Be aware of breaking events and contact media IMMEDIATELY if you can tie in to the story with a unique spin. Continue reading “How to Hook the Media by Sabrina Sumsion”

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Actually, it ends next week, but this week merely continues the countdown of brutal one-star reviews on The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels All Time (by Daniel S. Burt). We groaned our way from 100 to 76, wept bitter years from 75 to 51, now we’re rounding the bend for the home stretch with numbers 50 to 26.

Once again, these are all real one-star reviews from real readers, culled from a popular reading site. I am not saying I agree or disagree with any or all of them, and I am not doing this solely to elicit gasps or chuckles. My only goal is to remind my fellow scribblers that for every single book ever written, there are readers who feel they are absolute drek. Take solace in that whenever you get a less than stellar review yourself, and know that you will. Unless, of course, you think you are oh so much better than every writer on this list, in which case you are delusional and there is just no helping you. Continue reading “One-Star Reviews of the Hundred Greatest Novels, #50-26”